The True Tale of Escaflowne
by Enzeru no Yami
Summary: AU oneshot VH Romance Apparently there was more surprise in the chicken surprise then she’d realized. But she was unwilling to believe that he didn't exist. That what they had been through didn't exist.


The True Tail of Escaflowne

She stood on the balcony, in her nightgown, watching the stars twinkle in the night sky. She believed that it all was a dream, a mystical wonderful dream. Traveling to Gaea had been the trip that turned her life around, she decided after she returned that it was time to truly choose her path.

She did, and began to shift her focus from athletics to her schoolwork. She graduated from high school with honors and continued on to university and graduated to become a museum curator with a specialty in extinct societies. Of course she still felt as if her life was unfulfilled, like something was missing.

It was impossible for her to find that missing piece, she dated of course, went to different bars, clubs. But … still … nothing. It had been her wish to find her one true love, but for once her wish did not bring her to where her true love resided on, Gaea. And that's where everything became complicated, according to everyone around her she had never disappeared; she had never traveled to Gaea or anywhere. In fact she had been in and out of delusions and even in a slight coma for weeks after collapsing on the track.

The reason that she collapsed was not even romantic in the slightest it was from some sort of food poisoning, apparently there was more surprise in the chicken surprise then she'd realized. Although it only made her feel marginally better, when over a hundred other students became ill as well, not as ill as she did, but still ill. She couldn't remember what happened in those few weeks when she was ill but it really didn't matter, several dozen people could place her in her hospital bed, totally delirious talking about some planet called Gaea and draconians and battles. So to her horror it was all-just a food poisoning induced delusion. And that's the event that lead her to be what she was today. A twenty-two year old successful museum curator, with absolutely nothing resembling a social life. Well until she met him.

The proverbial white knight, ironically he was literally a black knight, it was a costume party after all. She came as a gypsy fortune teller; it was just too similar to her dream maybe that had been what she was subconsciously aiming for that night, a recreation of the most important time of her life that didn't really happen. Maybe she was just bored and looking for connections where none existed. But that night …

He was in the shadows as she talked with her 'date' for that evening. He was her cousin, who had agreed to come with her but no one had to know that, she just didn't want all of her co-workers and visiting museum personnel to think that she had no social life even if it was true. But the dark knight as she was proud to call him just had something about him that was very attractive; he was mysterious and strangely alluring. Although looking back, those thoughts were pretty silly since he was wearing a mask, like everyone in the hall was.

But she was straying from that evening, the first time they met. She was getting a glass of punch from the refreshment table and bumped into him when she heard a co-worker call her name. She was startled and ended up tripping over her long flowing skirt and would have made an impressive swan dive on the floor. If he hadn't caught her before she fell of course. He held her in his arms tightly as he set her on her feet, making sure that she didn't trip again. His voice was husky and deep as he asked if she was okay, she was so shocked by the emotion in his voice that she could only nod.

It was him! The man from her 'adventure', he quickly introduced himself as Van Fanel and as an art collector that lived in Australia. He had been invited since he was a huge contributor to the museum and usually lent a few exhibits a year. For the fact alone she would have been extremely courteous but he was hot too. She politely introduced herself as the museum curator with a specialty in extinct societies. He was surprised, well he might have been surprised, and it was what he said at least. He also said that he'd only been told that the new curator was knowledgeable, and overly qualified they didn't mention that she was also very beautiful. His comments ignited a persistent blush that tainted her pale cheeks.

Of course she thanked him for his excessive praise. They spoke of different exhibits in the museum until her cousin expressed his wish to leave the party and they bade him farewell and left. The ride back to her apartment was filled with his list of all the phone numbers that he'd collected and how promising his dating future looked. As she watched the cars go by hardly noticing her cousin's elation. All her thoughts were of him… the dreamy dark knight that had filled her dreams since she was fifteen. The rest of her evening was quiet as she allowed her mind to wander during her evening routine. He was on Earth as a dashing and suave art collector; in fact he seemed to be quite similar to Allen Schezar, without the excess baggage that she 'remembered'. Maybe if Van was here than Allen was too. But that was a thought for another day, after all she did have word the next day, Mr. Fanel's … Van's she corrected with a smile, the new exhibit was arriving and needed to be authenticated, logged, insured, and THEN organized and labeled and arranged for it's opening in three weeks time. To say she was stressed and an overachiever was an understatement. She turned off the light and drifted off to sleep.

------

The next morning the museum was a mad house to be for certain that next morning. Aside from the new exhibit arriving there were some additional pieces that had arrived late for another exhibit. She'd spoken quite sternly with the other museum curator in Paris for that one. It was frustrating they were supposed to cooperate and he couldn't understand the fact that she was the new curator, not the curator's secretary, and she was not used to or willing to operate according to his quirky shipment schedule. It was hard enough to operate without having artifacts "getting lost" a week before they were supposed to arrive for an opening. But that wasn't even the hardest part of the morning so far. While everything else was pretty ordinary the completely unexpected "Bird's Eye View" tour was enough to make her completely lose her cool and throw a tantrum like a five year old. What was the "Bird's Eye Tour", well that is an interesting question with its own interesting story. It started out with a simple tour group that somehow convinced a guide that they had paid for a special tour and that they were going to make a scene if they did not get a special tour. Now this situation could have been easily handled before it got too traumatic if the idiot tour guide had just come to me and asked for instructions. This could have been dealt with quickly and quietly if he'd gone to one of his superiors and asked for assistance. This could have been dealt with, without too much fuss if he'd just asked SOMEONE, ANYONE for some assistance instead of just trying to take care of it himself. But since she was so irritated it's easy enough to presume that he didn't take the easy way out. Since half an hour after the group's arrival and just a few minutes into my staff meeting, several panicked tour guides rushed into the meeting screaming that several members of a tour group were staring at them from the ceiling of exhibit 432. Of course exhibit 432 was a children's aquatic exhibit that they waded in while playing with some shovels and sand, it wasn't really a proper exhibit but the kids enjoyed it and the staff loved to watch the kids have a great time. The kids in the pool at the time thought it was really cool and had made a big fuss about the neat people in the ceiling and then the staff members went into a quick huddle and sent the two fastest staff members to find me. Too bad that the two fastest were also the two voted most likely to take sick leaves for their frequent panic attacks.

After giving the two employees a simple lie detector test she finished her espresso and started walking over to the exhibit calmly, she also sent orders for an announcement to be made for all the parents who left their children in the water exhibit to quickly pick them up. Then she did something that she would dread for hours. She looked up! And saw the Louisianan tour group waving at her and taking pictures, as she later would figure out a few of them got some fairly nice shots down her blouse that were confiscated in the corresponding law suit. Within two hours and with the assistance of three-dozen firemen the whole tour group was extracted from the ceiling. Her nerves were shot by the time the poor tour guide was extracted, and it was only through Herculean force of will that she did not physically kick out the guide herself. Which would have been interesting since he was almost two hundred pounds and 6'2, and she was barely a hundred and twenty pounds and 5'6.

In fact after two of the firemen had to ask her to calm down, she calmly instructed the tour guide that he had less than a minute to get out of her sight and if he wasn't gone by that point in time she would have him arrested for trespassing. Thankfully he did leave and she had the chance to leave everything in the care of her senior staff and gave instructions that if she were disturbed by anything or anyone that didn't come bearing lunch and nothing else someone would be fired. Normally she wasn't so crude with her dealings with her staff but she couldn't take anymore, and the sad thing was that it wasn't even lunchtime yet. On the way to her office everyone gave her wide birth and didn't even dare to tell her that someone had arrived while she had been dealing with the crisis that effectively got her museum on the evening news. In fact she was so preoccupied that it was only after she had undone the first two buttons on her blouse, kicked off her heels, and threw herself on her divan chair in the corner of her office. In fact it was only after he had started chuckling that she opened her eyes and looked at him with an immense amount of humiliation bubbling up inside of her. He spoke briefly about the crisis that had forced him to bribe one of the security guards who were fending off the reporters to get inside to look at how his exhibit was progressing. And he was quite surprised to see all the firemen helping guests get out of the ceiling of all places. She, of course, responded that this was not an everyday occurrence and hopefully it wouldn't be a negative event on her yearly evaluation. He then smiled at her and she felt like she could lose everything in that moment yet everything would be okay. He told her that he loved what she was doing with his exhibits and that he preferred the way she handled his exhibits to any museum curator that he had ever dealt with. After this particular earth shattering revelation, he spontaneously got up from his chair and pulled her to her feet and revealed his true reason for coming to the museum today. He had in fact made luncheon reservations at a local Japanese restaurant and asked for her to join him and to face the reporters together. She agreed and left instructions for her secretary to hold her calls and to keep the staff from talking to the media to a minimum. She also instructed her to call the lawyer's office and make an appointment for him to show up at the museum to personally take over the media storm. The media storm as she called it was more like a hurricane of cameras, lights, questions and reporters! Apparently the tour group was trying to blame her for allowing them to get stuck in the crawl space in the ceiling, the tour guide was there in mid-interview when he saw her leaving, squeaked and performed an impressive dive roll that opened the door to a successful career as a stunt double.

Regardless, they went out to lunch, chatted, and of course flirted a little. It was almost impossible for her to stop blushing as he described how much he enjoyed her company and her talented art exhibits that she'd put together. She in turn complimented his taste in art pieces and upon her mentioning that she would love to see Australia, he offered to fly her to his winter home in Australia to see his collection and be her personal tour guide around his home. She, of course, expressed her gratitude; it'd always been one of her dreams to explore Australia. In exchange she offered to show him around some of the more difficult to see open archeology sites in Japan. Her position as a museum curator really helped cut through the red tape but also the fact that she once dated the professor that taught the current dig managers meant that her behind the scenes tours included the finds that hadn't even been sent to the university yet.

They split a lovely dessert and then steeled their wills to meet the lawyer on their trip back to the museum and dodged even more questions once the reporters realized who Van was then when the initial allegations about her involvement had even been raised. And that second media storm concluded the first of many lunch dates that they shared. Of course there were also some dinner dates as well, she had to have some justification to go out and buy some nice/sexy evening gowns when Ralph Lauren's fall collection went on sale. There was one night however that was very special, it was the first night of a five-day trip on one of his yachts, and it was the first night that they spent together. And the next morning they ate breakfast together with faintly visible blushes as they shyly avoided eye contact. They spent every night of that trip in each other's arms and were an official couple when they stepped off the yacht. The trip started a whirlwind romance that made them as popular as most movie stars. It was a mere six months later when he picked her up to go to the opera and drinks afterward and upon his insistence that a decadent piece of Tiramisu Cake was delivered to the table with a diamond engagement ring on top of it. It was subtle and romantic and he was absolutely adorable as his usually eloquent tongue tripped over the proposal that he'd been preparing for the past week. Of course her response was positive, after all what more could a girl ask then an incredibly handsome man that wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and she was madly in love with him. She would never forget his expression when she accepted his proposal; he almost seemed as if he expected her to refuse him on the spot! The childlike glee in his entire person as he swept her up into his arms would warm her heart for years to come.

Not to mention that her mother was incredibly happy that she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life just dating and was going to settle down and have children … eventually. Also it was quite the bonus for her fiancée to be incredibly attractive and wealthy as well.

She was convinced that she was the luckiest woman on the entire planet, or at least that's what she thought when she discovered that she was going to have a baby, his baby. It was quite apparent they weren't as careful as she had thought they were. She told him of their upcoming blessing after she refused a glass of champagne on the anniversary of their first date, he was shocked for a moment and then he swept her into his arms and yelled to the entire restaurant that he was going to be a father. The crowd even offered them congratulations on their way out after they finished their dessert. The next few months were a blur, of course since Van was so concerned that she might overwork herself he hired an assistant for her and one day after work he picked her up in a limo, swept her off to a resort in Mexico and they married in front of a few of their close friends and family. It was a beautiful ceremony that began their lives together. The rest of the months before the birth of their first child were filled with brightly colored toys and cradles and more toys than one child could ever need. Not to mention a particularly hilarious episode that reminded her of Joey from Friends when Rachel had baby proofed the apartment. And there was also a remarkable argument when they were constructing the crib about which part was 3aaa and whether or not it was the straight piece or the bent piece. Fortunately Amano came by and settled the argument and managed to assemble the rest of the crib. Sometimes it was useful to have a friend with a Master's degree in engineering around.

Their baby was born in the spring on a rather stormy day four weeks before her due date; she was quite the impatient baby and was almost born during the opening of the impressionist exhibits expansion celebration. Little Millerna was born in the ambulance at the museum after just a few minutes of hard labor. After a short trip to the hospital and a quick check up, the happy little family went home to settle in their new baby. The next few years were filled with opening their own gallery, traveling the world and having four more children. It almost made tears come to her eyes as she remembered how it finally happened. She finally found her Prince Charming and had her little family. After years of wondering if indeed he did exist in a place other than her memory she had her answers, yes he did exist and they were happier than she had ever thought possible.

And so she stood on the balcony, alone, conveying her happiness to the moon. As she stared at the moon she felt her husband's arms surrounded her waist and he kissed her neck before leading her back to their bed. Ending one night of the continuing story of their lives together.

AN- What do you think? The writing style is a new experiment that I'm trying which probably will be only for any and all one shots that I write.

I hope you've all enjoyed this story it was only with the assistance of Love Witch, who helped me to hammer out the plot and the details. And my loving boyfriend Jeremy, who was overly generous with his praise whenever I finished a new part of this story. The two of them have my profound thanks.

Please R&R I'd love to hear some feedback.

Thanks,

Enzeru No Yami


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